Framing the Poor

Representing the poor has been a problem for society since it first became sedentary and developed complex economic systems. Often treatment of low wage labor was extremely poor by the ruling nobles, but as capitalism developed in the western world those of lower class were treated more equals, though it was their issues were still their own. It’s not till the modern era that society really starts to look at it’s own conditions to explain why poor live their conditions. This does not last however as we suddenly slip back and return to accusing someone’s poverty as ineptness of the individual, and seem to read adhere to ideas of lazy cheating lower class. Why this has happened, and where it will lead is very important to addressing the future economic equality in the United States,

Though it had been growing sentiment for a long time thinking about poverty as structural problem didn't takeoff, particularly in the United States, until after the Gilded Age and into the Great Depression. US politics takes the first big step towards structural adjustment with the New Deal at a time when a majority of American’s find themselves under economic stress. It’s success is later applied in new more controversial policies of the Kennedy, and Lyndon administrations. Lyndon’s “war on poverty” and Great Society programs promise to help reduce poverty by providing easier access to health care, education, and some basic necessities, and after watching many of these policies play out many achieved their goals. Minorities and the elderly were particularly assisted by the Great Society program. There are also considerable decreases in environmental damage and water pollution, due to some of the policies enacted by the Great Society program. However after five years these programs were declared failures and a new social movement emerged.

It was decided at this time that The Great Society was a failure due to rises in unemployment in 1970s, ignoring the fact that this was in part due to an overall slowdown of the economy and the outsourcing of domestic manufacturing. The newly elected president Nixon and powerful neoliberal economist would push that the problems they are now facing due to the big government’s anti-poverty policies. They were so successful that many consider it a go to example of government failure even today despite evidence it did improve our nations economic equality for a much lower cost than anticipated. Petty politics alone could not have supported this alone for so long though, it would require media support.

The inclusion of large news firms would not only up keep the politics of this time, but help return the myth of a parasitic portion of America to validate their claims. Starting in the early seventies the number of newspapers articles making claims that the current poverty problems were due laziness increased dramatically.  Much of this was directed towards discrediting social programs as creators a “culture of dependency” in which people would rather receive minute amounts of government assistance than work. Framing the poor would become a particularly popular tactic in the late seventies as high inflation and a slight economic downturn led to many of the government welfare programs were cut. During this time many people fell back below poverty and for the first time in a long time poverty rates increased. For many news outlets this was an opportunity to prove their claims that those in poverty cheat and grow dependent on it, leading to huge spike of articles framing the poor as cheating welfare users, as can be seen by table 1.

Over the next few decades media would keep the public conversation continuously more focused on framing people below the poverty line as lazy and dysfunctional, despite the fact that the level of working poor has remained stagnate for the entire duration. Sadly, structural issues like social capital disparity, underclass frame, saw deep cuts in media coverage. In fact nearly every decade saw an overall decrease in poverty coverage, excluding the 90s due to a sudden burst in lazy and social disorder, the balance of employment and lower class pacifism, frames.

The twisting of public interest becomes very detrimental at this point as fewer people understand the true cause of poverty as a whole. The loss of underclass frames are particularly damaging as not only does it mean a large part of problems in poor neighborhoods are ignored, but understanding of current economic racism is misunderstood and often neglected by those in power positions. Negative frames are also damage poor communities often discourage those who may need extra assistance or would taking risk since they viewed as lesser by not pulling up on so called “boot straps”. The cheat frame can also be an obstacle for a member of any lower class community to gain respect socially, politically, and professionally as people difficulty trusting someone who’s unemployed, making it even more difficult move vertically up the social ladder.

A result of all this media based stereotyping and discussion leading the issue returns to how we govern. Whenever it is that one political institution seeks to give aid to help a group improve their situation, on top how will we afford it there is always a question of do they deserve this chance, and if they how do we keep those who wish to abuse it out. Take the current state of welfare programs right now, it is constantly under threat by budget cuts by those that believe aid is just a way of removing incentive, or if it’s not that there’s always a debate over whether or not drug users or illegal immigrants can get access to that service. As result many projects designed to assist the needy either take to long, or the law becomes twisted and overly complex. There is also a very strong reduction in  the government generosity index, combination of resources of a country allocated towards improving poverty, poverty rate, and inflation rate, all without the medicare program due to the cost complications with our aging population.

Looking at the graph above shows what the future of US could be as we continue to ignore some of the facts poverty. The point of this graph is not just to show that government should be there to give the littler guys a chance, and it no longer is, but it show we are unwilling to use a tool, that should be operated by people, to give everyone a better chance to succeed. Instead we find ourselves punishing those who have and in turn reward those who are the wealthiest. It’s a very serious problem when a society demonizes those who are less fortunate as it leads a extreme worsening of our wealth disparity, what we’ve experienced over the last decade. If we continue much longer on our current path long enough this final effect of our mistreatment of wealth it could end just as it always does when the greater half of the population loses its purchasing power.

Danziger, Pfeffer, & Schoeni (november, 2013)  Wealth Disparities Before and After the Great Recession,  NNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE  Volume: 650   Issue: 1   Pages: 98-123 http://www.stanford.edu/group/recessiontrends-dev/cgi-bin/web/sites/all/themes/barron/pdf/IncomeWealthDebt_fact_sheet.pdf

Rose, M and  Baumgartner, R (2013) Framing the Poor: Media Coverage and US Poverty Policy, POLICY STUDIES JOURNAL  Volume: 41   Issue: 1   Pages: 22-53

http://www.unc.edu/~fbaum/teaching/Misc/Max_Rose_Poverty_Gap_April_2011.pdf

Risen, Clay (Fall,2007) The War on the War on Poverty, Democracy a Journal of Ideas: http://www.democracyjournal.org/6/6554.php?page=all

A Study of Bible Study

In order to experience being an outsider among a organization with a very different ideology, I attended a bible study put on by the students. Going in I felt some what nervous, because I knew they would question my views on the text, and given my discomfort with accepting things purely on faith it would likely lead to arguments. Luckily one of my friends was a part of this group which helped bridge the gap, and gave me one person in discussion rather than having face a mob of like minded people. Their reception of me was actually fairly warm, though the passage that week was about accepting new people into your home so that helped set a good tone.

When I pointed out that the passage, while positive about accepting different types peoples, had deep asimultive influence by stating that love was to be shared to all God fearing people, they seemed confused and went back to talking about the good of spreading ideals everyone. Afterwards I realized what the disconnect was between myself and them. To them the word of God is fact, when they spread it their doing the work of an educator. To them system is very similar to strong political and social values, like the sovereignty of states and equal rights, they’re absolute beliefs and at least according to the bible based on fact. For everyone christian this is of course not true some are more lenient than others, but it was interesting to see how beliefs can become fact, and what that might mean for some of my values.

Gender Norm Experirment

Myself and three other people were instructed to break a gender norm in a public place to see how our peers reacted. We brain stormed a number of potential ways to break norms. For the girls: acting aggressively and spitting into the grass, and for the guys: sitting cross legged, applying makeup, and other normally feminine grooming practices were all ways of breaking some simple gender rules. Because one of the girls in our group had a file, and it is uncommon for men to attend to their nails, it was decided we’d do an uncommon grooming technique.

For the experiment we decided it was best that I walked around the school’s main walkway using the file since I felt the most natural with it. We were able to distract a few passer and though I didn’t notice several people looked at me oddly according to my team members. While ignorance protected me for the time it is likely that I would have noticed the discomfort of those around me, or someone would have informed me directly. Though it is unlikely anyone would have aggressively tried to restore order, the discomfort alone would pressure me to stop this habit if it was one I had. What’s important to note is that though this may seem trivial it shows we have ridiculous rules that persuades us from doing what we want.

American Individualism

America is a country of extreme individualism that affect just about every aspect of our life from birth to death. Our devotion to individualism shapes many major social systems like our free market, our democratic government, or our family structures. Sometimes it can be difficult judge the true value of individualistic behavior over the more communal set ups of some other countries since we’re raised to make all of our decisions by ourselves. If we take the time though to really look at how our individualism affects us and those around us it becomes clear how much being an island effect the community.

A great example of how individualism has shaped america is the growth of our hyper capitalist system. The United States was founded at the height of early liberalist ideology in the western world, which was responsible for creating many of America’s views on personal freedom and political structure, as well as founding one of the most unregulated economies in the world. The free economy results in people believing heavily in self reliance fiscally and it becomes increasingly more normal look at those who make it or don’t make it products of a sort of social darwinism. Capitalist culture does change from time to time depending on the state of the economy. During times of recession people support each other often through government action like in the great deal of the nineteen thirties or the bailouts of present day. During prosperity we often turn the other way competition increases and cooperation decreases, everyone should pull their own weights. Success after world war two lead to a long period of extreme darwinism which gave us most of the wealthiest individuals in the world, but created a huge wealth gap and made us a country with far fewer worker protections than most industrialized countries. The reason why america has such gaps is largely due to our opposition to labour unions, unlike countries of such as Japan which has a historically collectivist culture where workers organize in very powerful shunto.

Individualism also play a large role in family life, along with other relationships with those in our community. The size of families in the U.S. is largely based on culture that arose after world war two, with the growth of suburban life and the sudden economic boom. Before the large economic boom of the nineteen fifties americans lived in up to three generation homes similar to those of south american and asian countries, but afterwards developed into primarily nuclear families. Marriages are also largely influenced by individualistic cultures most obviously by their autonomy, but also in their stability. When comparing U.S. marriages to countries that favor collectivist behavior, ignoring those that support forced marriages due to the many addition forces related to it, people stay together longer and much few end in divorce in collectivist countries, likely due to the fact that understanding and helping solving others problems are a large part of their culture. While the previous statement makes individualist sound more callus when interacting with each other, favoring their own agendas rather than working things out, but those who are not part of the normal society integrate much easier with individualistic groups. Cultures with collectivist morals normally work through a series of in groups which, while close to each other, have difficulty accepting differences making people of collective cultures actually much more exclusive to outsiders than the average individualistic society. Selectiveness created by strong collective ideology in eastern european and asian countries may explain why fascism rose there while more individualist countries like Britain and the U.S. it had little effect in nineteen hundreds.

Decision making is also deeply affected by our perceived independence, as I somewhat stated earlier, but it goes beyond a government’s foreign policy. Individualism’s influence has made the democratic process an ultimate decision making machine, and any other way is viewed as archaic or tyrannical. Everyone likes to have their voice heard even if they might not know what their talking about, but this is what’s right and just so that everyone is equal in an individualist society. In a collectivist society however they would not see always majority rule as the fairest system and favor those who seem the wisest to make decisions. Sometimes collectivist model works in small groups, and is in fact modeled in many aspects of corporate america, but more often than not it leads to totalitarian ship on the macro level.

The Sociological Imagination

Every weekday starts just about the same. I wake up about an hour before class, head down the hall to take a shower, then go to breakfast. After breakfast it's time for a brisk walk across the street to make it into my first class.Rushing around all day it can be easy to forget to think about what it is I do and why there's these certain methods attached to them.

The first goal of the morning is to get cleaned up in the public showers. For most people showering starts with entering the wet shower then taking off what ever clothing they have behind the privacy curtain, whether out of discomfort with their own nudity or courtesy to others. Where this shame in our genitalia originated is hard to say, but it's present in almost every culture in the world. The humiliation of indecent exposure is reinforced constantly by the media and television, where the tiniest exposure of just another part of the body becomes a great debacle. Perhaps it relates back to our obsession with sex, how it's some ultimate goal or it's a sacred thing, and the mere image of another person relates them back to all the structure built up around the idea, just like someone might say dressing a certain way does.

After that is breakfast which has number of peculiar rituals attached to it especially as a public place. When I first arrive I hand the man at the counter my, I thank him and go on my way. Saying "Thank you" is a kind gesture we're told to use whenever someone does something in our benefit by our parents and educators from a very young age, but what point does it become excessive? The person who swiped my card did me a service, a mutual trade, not a  favor but thanks implies gratitude not just respect. The set consistency to use thank you in every exchange seems to weaken it's meaning after awhile and makes it into an act of conformation, but to not use it still holds weight since it has become part of our custom.

When I get my card back the next thing I need is food which for what ever reason is always completely different than lunch and dinner. There's far reaching establishment that is passed down by what our parents serve and it tells us what is good to eat and when it's meant to be eaten. Sometimes what we don't eat is logical for the time as our stomach is prepping for the day, but many restrictions are totally irrational and surely based on cultural heritage, and is reinforced by corporations as well as public utilities like the cafeteria till we crave certain products depending on time.

Once I have my food it's time to find a place to sit preferably by someone I might talk to, but truly my peace is most important to me when eating so why is there this nagging urge sit near someone and force myself to be social.This fear of being alone in a crowd most relates to one of the unofficial lessons from public education. Back in those days to not be surrounded by some friends at all times comes with feelings of both pity and superiority over the currently alone person. Continuous judgements made by peers eventually builds up a belief in doing everything with a group.

Once that awkwardness is over I have to cross the street and go to class. On most days I cross with a large group of people also going to class and because of that I often just trust them and cross without looking. There's many things that can be said about that behavior in relation to human psychology, but to me it's most interesting to point out our how aloof we are to dangers of the road. Automobile accidents take about twenty five thousand lives a year, and is the leading cause of death in young adults, but it has very little effect on our culture. Driving for us is a such a integral part of western ideas of freedom, independence, and success we couldent think of life without it even if that means endangering our lives.

Were things different maybe it wasn't part of our American dream to own a car, or we as society were so appalled by the deaths due to people driving around in two ton boxes of steel, with what is equivalent to a doctor having only first aid training, would we leave driving solely to professionals? Could it be possible to use all the money and resources from automobile usage to create  a network of public transportation to effectively deliver every one to their destination? If our societies proved anything it's that seeming imposable goals like that become possible once we focus, and our idea of what is acceptable or important changes.